Responsibility: the theme the whole play is built to prove

Five people each did one thing to Eva Smith. Not one of them handed her the disinfectant - and four of them broke no law at all. Yet by the end of the evening, the play has made all five answer for her death. This video builds the argument for how it does that.

The story itself lives in An Inspector Calls: An overview. This is one of the play's big-idea videos, and it builds a single argument.

Responsibility, in this play, means answering for what your choices do to other people, even when the law says you did nothing wrong. Birling states the opposite in Act One, before the Inspector arrives. A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own. That is the claim the play is built to answer, and Eva Smith is how it answers. She never appears on stage, yet every decision of the evening points at her. Put the five links in her own order, and listen to how small each one sounds. Birling sacks her for asking for more pay. Well it's my duty to keep labour costs down. Sheila has her sacked from the shop. Because I was in a furious temper. Gerald keeps her as his mistress, then ends it. I didn't feel about her as she felt about me. Eric forces his way into her room, and she becomes pregnant. I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty. Sybil turns her away from the committee. I'm sorry she should have come to such a horrible end. But I accept no blame for it at all. Each link sounds small on its own. How does the chain still end in her death? Each one leaves her with less. The next person finds her poorer, more alone, and easier to use or to refuse. Now, listen to the joins. The factory sacking sends her to the shop. The shop sacking sends her to the bar where Gerald finds her. Gerald's goodbye leaves her alone when Eric meets her, and Eric's baby sends her to the committee.

The Inspector says the argument out loud before he leaves. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. Members of one body means a society works like a single body. A cut on your hand is felt by the whole of you, and what one part does, the others feel. Then Priestley tests the argument. He takes the Inspector away, lets the family find out he may have been a hoax, and waits to see what is left. Eric's answer is that everything is left. The girl's dead and we all helped to kill her - and that's what matters. Why does Priestley test the argument after the Inspector has gone, not while he is there? Because an argument that needs him in the room is only one man's opinion. If it stands without him, it belongs to the play.

That is why ordinary is enough. No single link kills her, and taking one away would not break the habit that made all five. The chain is a society, not a conspiracy.

The same five links can be written up two ways - and only one of them is an argument. Written as a tour, it goes like this. Birling sacked her, which was irresponsible. Sheila got her sacked, which was irresponsible. Gerald used her, which was irresponsible, and so on for five stops. Written as an argument, it goes like this. Priestley builds responsibility as a chain: each ordinary decision leaves Eva with less, until five people who mostly broke no law have left her with nothing. Which version answers a question on responsibility, the tour or the argument, and why? The argument. The tour repeats one word at five stops, while the argument says how the stops connect, and the connection is what the play sets out to prove. One examiner's report says this about weaker answers: At the lower levels of both An Inspector Calls responses, however, students had a tendency towards simply narrative responses which showed some grasp of the text but assuredly not of the tasks. In plain words, retelling what happened, even in the right order, is not an answer to the question you were set. So the fix is to open every paragraph with a claim about the chain, and bring the characters in afterwards as evidence for it.

Now, a question in the real exam shape. How does Priestley explore ideas about responsibility in An Inspector Calls? Pause and plan three paragraphs that argue rather than tour. First, two wrong turns. Opening with the fact that Priestley was a socialist tells the reader about the writer's life, not about the play. And touring the five links in order, one paragraph each, is the tour from a minute ago with paragraph breaks added. This is how a plan that argues runs, so you can check yours against it as each part lands. It opens on Birling's claim that a man should look after himself, and says the play is built to answer it. It then builds the chain: each ordinary decision leaves Eva with less, so the responsibility is shared, and no single person carries it alone. And it ends on the test: the hoax removes the Inspector, and the argument still stands, because Eric and Sheila still hold to it. Joined up, that is one sentence you can say in the exam hall: responsibility in this play is shared, because ordinary choices add up to a death. One chain, five links: every link hands her on to the next. The chain is not an illustration of the argument. The chain is the argument.

The argument, tested twice: once on Birling's claim, and once on a thesis you have not heard yet. Birling's claim: a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his what? His own. It is the claim that every scene after the doorbell answers. Suppose a student writes this thesis: the Birlings are all villains who deserve what happens to them. What does the chain argument say back to that thesis? That they are not monsters at all. They are ordinary people making ordinary choices, and in this play, ordinary is enough. Five people, one link each, and not one of them handed her the disinfectant. The play still makes all five answer for her death.

No need to see this twice once you can say that thesis in one breath, so give it a thumbs-up then. If the argument still feels loose, pin the one sentence somewhere you will see it every day.

Next in the chapter: Class and power, an unfair society, and who benefits from it.

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